


baby, all the lights go out

by writergirl8



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Romance, Co-workers, F/M, Office Sex, Semi-Public Sex, friends to lovers to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-16 22:35:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13063584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirl8/pseuds/writergirl8
Summary: Stiles Stilinski is her co-worker. There are policies regarding dating people at work. When people date their coworkers, the attention moves to their relationship, not their work. There is suspicion surrounding elevation up the company ladder for both parties, and rumors regarding who else you might have screwed. And Lydia doesn’t have time to accidentally fall in love with her best friend. She doesn’t have time to have a best friend who she is in love with. Lydia needs to focus on her future, not on Stiles. Her math doesn’t add up to a sum that makes him happy.Four years ago, she had thought the number she’d come up with was correct. But sometimes she thinks she did the calculation wrong.Written for 2017 Stydia Secret Santa!





	baby, all the lights go out

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everybody! Merry Christmas! This is my gift for the 2017 Stydia Secret Santa gift exchange. I made it for Darce, aka Harley-Quinns. She said she wanted an "Older, mature, dark Stydia AU" and this is what my non-dark brain came up with. By "mature" I assumed we were talking sex so please note that there is some bangity bang in this fic.
> 
> First, the most important part: This fic has pretty outfits. Here are what the outfits look like, if you'd like to see them: 
> 
> [Lydia ](https://www.polyvore.com/lydia_gala_outfit/set?id=232395905%20), [Stiles](https://www.polyvore.com/stiles_gala_outfit/set?id=232396854%20), [Allison](https://www.polyvore.com/allison_gala_outfit/set?id=232396232%20), [Scott](https://www.polyvore.com/scott_gala_outfit/set?id=232396929%20), [Kira](https://www.polyvore.com/kira_gala_outfit/set?id=232396018%20), and [Isaac ](https://www.polyvore.com/isaac_gala_outfit/set?id=232396886%20).
> 
> Thank you so much to Lauren (afineskyline), Lois (Lolohannah), and Trace (lilbluednacer) for looking this over before I sent it. Lauren, your live texts killed me and made my night. Thank you for always being there for me when I need you and sharing your kindness with me. Trace, your help and enthusiasm with the outfits was essential. Thank you for making me enthusiastic about this fic. Lois, when you started commenting with "Delicate" lyrics I legitimately lost it laughing. Thank you for your live texts and for loving Stydia so hard and for letting me love them with you. 
> 
> Speaking of which, this fic was written listening to Demi Lovato's "Only Forever" and Taylor Swift's "Delicate" on repeat for hours. #SorryNotSorry. Also on the subject of music, the title is from Dua Lipa's "Be The One," as are the lyrics at the beginning. 
> 
> Quick disclaimer: There's technically infidelity in this fic, though the relationship is causal and non-exclusive, so technically it could also be _not_ infidelity simultaneously. Either way, something's going on. 
> 
> And finally, a loud THANK YOU at Blair, fuckyeahstydia on tumblr, for running this Secret Santa Gift exchange. Because of Blair's hard work, we get all this new content every Christmas and we get to give shit to each other!!! AMAZING! Don't forget to go to the stydia secret santa tumblr to check out all the other gifts and maybe give the gift of a review this Christmas to one (or more!) of the people in this fandom who have been working crazy hard to get their stuff finish. Reblog gif-sets, watch videos, etc. Blair, girl, you're amazing and thank you so much for doing this despite the bajllion credits that you're taking, your job, and the 23 hours a day you spend brushing your long, luscious hair with one hand while applying liquid lipstick with the other. Only a queen like you could pull off all that stuff. 
> 
> If you want to talk Stydia... well, so do I. I'm rongasm on tumblr and writergirl8 on twitter, and I really hope you enjoy this fic.

__Come on, let me get to know you  
_Just another chance so that I can show_  
_That I won't let you down and run_  
_No, I won't let you down and run_

_  
Cause I could be the one_

 

When Lydia had been plotting her ascension to the higher levels of Argent Industries, one of the things she had been looking forward to was not having to plan the annual company Christmas party anymore. At first, when she had been assigned the task, it had been a privilege. The Argents _knew_ her, had known her since she was younger, and they trusted this brand new employee, right out of grad school, with extra tasks to go along with her normal work. At the time, she had loved the prestige of flaunting her organizational skills and superb taste for no reason other than the fact that she _could_. 

After a while, however, Lydia had begun to get promoted, and the party planning didn’t seem as important anymore. She wasn’t just assisting in a lab anymore, she was _working_ in one. And then she was running one. And then she was running the entire division, responsible for everything that was going on in each lab on the eighteenth and nineteenth floors. At that point, planning something as frivolous as a Christmas party had felt so far beneath her that Lydia had begun to resent it. When she’d finally passed on the responsibility to the HR department, she had felt a momentary relief before realizing something that she had never considered in application to this predicament: Lydia Martin is a control-freak. 

Maybe at one point she had been normal about being in control, but then her parents had divorced and she’d had to pretend to be stupid to be liked and the first person to realize that Lydia was _Lydia_ had been Allison. Who had, miraculously, laughed and teased her about how organized and obsessive she’d been. After that, Lydia’s odder traits hadn’t seemed as bad. 

There had been one _excruciatingly_ bad Christmas party thrown together at the last minute, and then Lydia had taken the reigns back from her coworkers, all the while ignoring the amused, slightly exasperated expression on Allison’s face. She had sat in her top-floor office and planned the event of a lifetime. And the next year she did it again. And, after that, again. And again.

Several years in, Lydia’s Christmas parties have developed a level of prestige that she’d argue only she could bring to the company. As a multi-million dollar organization, Argent Industries has the funds to put on the events that Lydia had always fantasized about attending, growing up. When she throws this party, she’s not just doing so for the employees. She’s doing so for the board, for the charitable donors, for the primary stockholders, and for the generations of wealthy Argents who have also brought along their high-end guests. 

Even now, watching carefully over the top of her flute of champagne, Lydia is relatively certain that Kira from the art department is having a conversation with an actual Kennedy. Judging from the look on his face, he’s charmed. 

“Well,” says Isaac from where he stands at Lydia’s elbow. “You did it again.” 

“Did what?” Lydia asks, playing dumb. She wants to hear it. If she’s going to get a compliment, he’d better not be lazy about it. 

“Put on a holly jolly hoity toity piece of Christmas bullshit,” replies Isaac plainly. If Lydia pouts, it’s only because she is relatively certain he could have done better than ‘hoity toity.’ 

“That sounds like the beginning of a Christmas carol,” she says sarcastically. Neither of them have looked at each other once throughout the conversation, which is how most of their bitchfests go. Lydia likes to believe that their friendship only works so well because they are both equally irked about something at any given moment. 

“Yet it could never replace my personal favorite.” 

“And which one is that?”

“Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell cock,” says Isaac, deadpan. 

Lydia is still smirking into her long-stemmed glass when Allison comes up behind her, pressing two red lips against Lydia’s cheek. 

“Lipstick,” admonishes Lydia immediately, turning horrified eyes towards her best friend. 

“Here,” says Scott helpfully, procuring a cloth napkin seemingly out of nowhere and handing it off to his wife. Allison licks it, just to annoy Lydia, and then gently scrubs at her cheek, ignoring the reproachful glare that her best friend is giving her. 

“Gorgeous,” pronounces Allison happily. “The belle of the ball.” 

Lydia’s relatively certain Allison is the belle of the Argent ball every year, with her daring dresses and bold makeup that she still manages to make look benefit-appropriate. This year, she’s got on a strapless silver-and-gold dress that tumbles to the floor, the hemline brushing against metallic high-heels that are definitely Lydia-approved. 

“You know, for a well trained wasp you seem to struggle to grasp the reason for cheek-bumps instead of actual kisses.” 

“Cheer-up, buttercup,” replies Allison. “The donors are in _love_ with the crab puffs. You’re definitely getting the microscope you want. They’re suckers for this party already.” 

“It’s really nice,” agrees Scott in his amiable way. 

(At this point, Lydia realizes that Isaac has only been so quiet because he is having eye-sex with a state senator who is standing across the room.) 

“I’m just waiting for something to go wrong,” murmurs Lydia, eyes sweeping from one wall to the other, scanning for imminent catastrophes. A few years back, she’d convinced the Argents to convert the bottom floor of their main headquarters into a giant ballroom. It had been relatively easy to draw up a presentation about the long-term cost benefit, and now they even rent out the space that had been tailored to her scrupulous specifications. 

Mostly, Lydia had done it just because she could. She intends to run this company someday— she has _plans_. And when she becomes the first non-Argent to become president of Argent Industries, she’s going to have sculpted the company into exactly how she wants it to be. 

But in the interim, at least this party is exactly how she wants it. The tasteful decorations, the holly and garland and pearls, the warm wash of light from the slightly dimmed diamond chandeliers that she had spent too much of her budget on. She’s in control of everything tonight, right down to the shoes of the servers who are circulating the ballroom with food that Lydia had impeccably selected. 

“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” Scott says soothingly. His tie has pastel drawings of horses on it. Lydia bites back a comment that at least one thing already has. 

“Statistically, that is impossible,” she tells him instead. 

“Oh hey,” Isaac interjects. “I found it.”

Following his gaze, the other three turn towards the entrance. There’s a small crowd gathered there, mingling awkwardly in the doorway, but nobody needs to tell Lydia who she’s looking for. At the back of the crowd stands Stiles Stilinski, his usually messy hair gelled carefully to the side. Lydia recognizes Allison’s handiwork in the navy blue suit he wears, and she can’t help but smile at the image of Allison attempting to wrangle him into a waistcoat. As if he senses her smile, Stiles’ eyes skate directly over to Lydia. His gaze is soft when he looks at her, tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip as though already anticipating it being too chapped when he bends down to kiss her. Their eye contact only ends when a small hand slides over Stiles’ arm, fingers curling around the bicep as the woman attached to them reaches up to whisper in his ear. 

The bubble bursts and the smile on Lydia’s face becomes forced. The new girl is wearing a blush colored dress with cheeks to match. She’s sweet, Lydia decides. She’s all the way across the room and Lydia can tell Stiles has brought the girl-next-door to her party. Perfectly highlighted brown hair falls just above her waist, straight in a way that takes Lydia three hours and a black amex. Stiles smirks at whatever she whispers into his ear. Lydia sips from her flute of champagne, watching. 

“Her name is Emily,” Allison supplies, delivering the news with the type of nonchalance that would suggest she expects that Lydia is about to explode. 

“Everyone’s name is Emily,” comments Lydia, sparking a snort from Isaac. 

“I like her,” Scott says. His placid tone makes it sound like he’s talking about a toothpaste brand instead of the girl his best friend is currently sleeping with. 

“You like everyone,” Isaac points out. “Allison’s the real test.” 

“And me?” asks Lydia. 

“You wouldn’t like her even if she gave you one of her kidneys.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s how _you_ feel about most people.” 

Isaac offers her an amused glance, which makes Allison sigh with exasperation. She’s still pretending to be a nice person, but Lydia’s relatively certain she and Isaac will take her down eventually. 

“Hey, Isaac.” Stiles. His voice has that glimmer of mirth in it, like just by saying Isaac’s name he’s already begun telling a joke. “I’m pretty sure the dude over there who’s eye-boning you is famous.” 

“State senator,” Lydia says, purposefully speaking up as soon as there’s an opening. She doesn’t want him to think he’s thrown her off, or that she’s affected by Emily in any way. Mostly, she doesn’t want him to take her silence for wanting him. 

He’s too good at reading her. He’ll take her silence for exactly what it is, even when Lydia doesn’t know. Stiles Stilinski leaves her with nothing to hide behind. 

“Well,” says Stiles. “Remember me after you catapult into post-sex-tape stardom.” 

“Trying not to remember you even without that.” 

“Emily,” Allison interjects, blocking Stiles’ retort with a deeply dimpled smile. “Welcome!”

“Thank you,” the girl says genially. She seems nervous as her eyes dance around the circle, but Lydia doesn’t soften her scrupulous gaze. She doesn’t quite realize how hard she’s staring until Emily’s eyes slide over to her, back-and-forth, multiple times. “Lydia!” she says, finally raising her eyes. “Stiles told me you plan this whole thing every year.” 

“Mmhm,” says Lydia, sticky sweet. 

“It’s beautiful. You did an incredible job.” 

“Mmmm.” 

Scott breaks through the ensuing awkward silence. 

“Emily, do you want to meet my father-in-law? He’s the president of the company.” 

Before she can answer, Allison and Scott steer her away from Lydia. It’s actually incredibly satisfying, though less so when Stiles doesn’t follow their party. At least Isaac is still with them, Lydia notes with relief. 

“I’m gonna go fuck that guy in a bathroom stall,” Isaac says decisively. He hands Stiles his drink, causing Stiles to frown with annoyance. “Play nice, kids.” 

With that, he’s gone. Lydia considers flipping him off as he strides across the ballroom, leaving her alone with Stiles Stilinski at _her_ party, obviously knowing it’s the opposite of what she wants. But, instead, she drains her champagne, sticking it on the tray of a passing waiter. 

“Isaac Lahey,” Stiles says, tipping Isaac’s glass in his direction. “Always the fucking worst, actually.” 

“He thinks the same of you.” “Yeah, but I’m the right one.” 

“Right,” Lydia replies sarcastically. “I’m... actually going to get another drink.” 

She takes off, heading towards the bar in the corner of the ballroom. There are servers circulating the space, but escaping Stiles seems more desirable than waiting for one of them to come by and rescue her. What she’s not expecting is the clomp of Stiles’ dress shoes to follow her across the floor, tagging along as though he had been specifically invited to traipse after her. Lydia grits her teeth but continues on, unwilling to let Stiles know he had floored her in any way. 

“So did you hide any mistletoe this year?”

She had, and she hadn’t known he was bringing a date, so she most certainly is not going to tell him that. 

“Why? Are you going to attempt to trap that girl under it?”

“Depends,” he replies cheekily. 

“On what?”

Stiles catches her eye. 

“Depends.” 

He does this every year. They do this _every year_. She isn’t sure if she’s angrier at him or at herself. Then he puts his hand on the small of her back to guide her towards the bar, and she decides unequivocally that she is angrier at him. 

“A white russian, please,” Lydia says, leaning her elbows against the bar. She cuts her eyes towards Stiles, standing right next to her, patiently waiting his turn, and adds, “And a moscow mule,” under her breath. 

Stiles’ posture straightens, as though her words have pulled the strings that make him a Real Boy. 

“You don’t have to be rude to Emily,” he comments as they stand there, waiting for their drinks. 

“And _you_ don’t have to act like you care whether or not I’m rude to her.” 

The ice still pierces through her tone; Stiles knows exactly the right words to melt it, but he doesn’t bother. Or maybe he likes it better this way. 

“I think you’d really like her,” supplies Stiles. “She’s getting a PhD in psychology.” 

“A soft science? Does her degree come in the form of a participation trophy?” 

“And what’s your degree in again, Lydia?” asks Stiles, tapping his chin. 

“I have a PhD in biochemical engineering and a masters in neuroscience!” Lydia reminds him, voice aghast even at the mere comparison of her degree to the other woman’s. “That’s _nothing_ like psychology.” 

“I know.” He drops the act, grinning, and reaches around her to get his drink from the bartender. “I just really like hearing you say it,” he murmurs in her ear. 

Goosebumps erupt across her skin, and she is suddenly aware of the fact that they haven’t had sex since Scott’s and Allison’s wedding. She’s skin hungry in a way that she hasn’t felt in months— in a way that she never _lets_ herself feel. 

Lydia blinks up at hm, a little in awe of how they can set each other off even when they’ve seen each other at their worse. She still comes over and watches movies with him all day and all night on the anniversary of his mom’s death. He still arrives at her condo to kiss her goodnight whenever she asks him to. 

“Does she know?”

“That you think poorly of her field?”

“No.” 

“Oh.” The grin vanishes from his face, and Lydia would feel bad except for the fact that he’s making her feel bad too. “I never told her we used to date, no.” 

Lydia had known that was coming, but she still _likes_ it. She likes the fact that what they had is still important enough to guard. She likes the fact that those eight months had shifted their world on its axis. She likes the fact that they can’t shake it off. 

“Hmmm,” she comments cryptically, accepting the drink the bartender offers her. When she turns back to Stiles, she sees him studying the smirk on her cheeks with a gravity that she hadn’t been expecting. “What, Stiles.” 

“Sometimes I feel like you forget that this is your idea.”

He says it so abruptly that Lydia wonders just how long he’s been holding the words on the tip of his tongue. It would be wrong of her to ignore the disappointment in his voice, so she chooses to focus instead on the minor edge of aggravation there, clinging onto the same frustration she feels. 

“You _know_ the company policy.” Stiles tilts his head, waiting for her to continue, and Lydia sighs, deflating a little. “You know _my_ policy.” 

He gives her a sad smile that she has gotten too familiar with. She recognizes it from standing across the aisle at a wedding that could have been theirs, holding onto Allison’s bouquet while Stiles offered Scott a ring. She recognizes it from streets outside of smoke-filled bars where they remember that they can’t kiss each other even though they want to. She recognizes it from the moment four years ago when she had walked away from him with an “I love you” dragging on the floor between the two of them, one that’s still knotted around both of their wrists.

“So you know why I brought someone else.”

“Ms. Martin!” The head caterer rushes over to her, high ponytail bouncing as she walks. “There’s going to be a delay on the braised duck legs.” 

“ _Why_?” Lydia demands, firing back into boss mode almost immediately. 

The next time her eyes find the spot where Stiles had been standing, he’s gone. 

She’d put them on different tables during the meal on purpose, but the result is Lydia watching Stiles, Scott, and Allison with the group of Argents that she knows best. Lydia, meanwhile, is across the room with the most generous donors, speaking to them about the work she does on the eighteenth and nineteenth floors. 

“I manage the output of the company and the quality of our products,” she states. “I oversee each project, animal and human tests, and development of medicine. My job involves being the final word with each decision our scientists make so that we can deliver the best treatment possible, for our families _and_ yours.” 

Stiles leans over to Scott and whispers something that makes Scott choke on his drink with laughter. Lydia feels her heart sink and she turns back to the donor she’s schmoozing with a renewed vigor. 

Throughout dessert, Isaac leans over and tells her the sordid details of his bathroom hookup to distract her from Emily’s hand on Stiles’ thigh, which she deeply appreciates. It’s atrociously inappropriate to discuss, but she ends up giggling into her tiramisu instead of fixating on her ex-boyfriend in the corner with a woman who is only _slightly_ less intelligent than Lydia— and certainly not by a margin she’s comfortable with. 

It’s only during the speeches that it gets truly bad. She’s heard it all before, and in fact had played a part in writing many of the brief comments made by the more visible donors and heads of the company. It’s easy to zone out, to be off the ball for a few seconds, and to use the time to do the calculations she’s always done in her head. 

Stiles Stilinski is her co-worker. There are policies regarding dating people at work. When people date their coworkers, the attention moves to their relationship, not their work. There is suspicion surrounding elevation up the company ladder for both parties, and rumors regarding who else you might have screwed. And Lydia doesn’t have _time_ to accidentally fall in love with her best friend. She doesn’t have time to have a best friend who she is in love with. Lydia needs to focus on her future, not on Stiles. 

It doesn’t add up to a sum that makes him happy. 

Four years ago, she had thought the number she’d come up with was correct. But sometimes she thinks she did the calculation wrong. 

Isaac drifts onto the dance floor with the rest of the crowd, snatching up Kira and pulling her in. The electric blue dress that she’s wearing whirls out dramatically as he spins her, and Lydia can’t help but smile at the way the crowd parts for both of them as they dance. Scott and Allison, on the other hand, are in a corner of the floor, wrapped up in each other like they always are. 

It’s the first time she’s been alone all night, and even though Lydia knows she should get out and kiss-ass, she finds herself more content to lean against the wall with her drink, watching the thing she’d created. 

To her, this is always the best part of these parties. The organized chaos, the pieces in motion, months of planning seeming effortless when they actually come together. It’s quiet and it’s peaceful and she had done this _alone_ — she hadn’t needed anyone else to make something this magical. 

With Lydia, it’s never quite been about needing. It’s always been about wanting. 

“Hey,” says a quiet voice behind her, and she doesn’t jump when his hand slides around her waist. “I was really busy trying to act cool earlier and I kinda forgot to tell you how beautiful you look.” 

The pleasant warmth in her stomach matches the heat of the palm against her dress. Lydia can’t help but lean into Stiles, feeling more in control than she has all night. His ease instantly puts _her_ at ease, because this is the pattern they always fall into. They’re wired around each other until they decide not to be. 

“You’re sexy in that suit.” She tilts backwards slightly, her head on his chest. He’s sturdy underneath her, an easy weight that she knows she can always lean against. “Where’s your date?”

“She’s getting the company tour. Allison promised to show her all the spots where employees have been caught fucking.’” 

“So they’ll certainly be going to the break room.” 

“I’d say it’s the first stop right after Isaac’s desk.” 

“Undoubtedly.” 

They lapse into an easy silence, rocking a little bit to the music. Lydia wonders what Stiles is thinking, but she’s too comfortable to ask. 

As always when they’re playing the quiet game, Stiles is the first one to end it. 

“So when we eventually end up together, do you think you’re gonna regret never dancing with me at any of these things?”

“If it’s so inevitable, couldn’t I dance with you _after_ we end up together?”

They’re hidden together in a corner, and nobody’s paying attention to the two people who have vanished into a shadow, so Lydia doesn’t care when Stiles dips his head into her neck, huffing out a laugh against her skin. 

“Maybe I just wanna hold you right now.” 

Her heart sinks deeper into her stomach. If her next words don’t make light of it, she thinks she’s probably going to cry, so Lydia digs into her soul and finds words that feel like a laugh. 

“Is this dress doing it for you that much?”

He pauses before responding, brushing his lips against her neck while he considers his answer. 

“ _You_ do it for me that much.” 

She turns around finally, looking up at him. Takes a long swig from the drink in her hand, which is some concoction with rum in it that is most certainly getting to her head. 

“Come hold me, then.” 

She loosely tangles their fingers together, tugging him out of the ballroom with an emotional strength she didn’t know she had. Because Lydia doesn’t check over her shoulder to see if anybody’s looking. She just… doesn’t. 

Four years ago, there had been too many variables, but it’s been six years since she met Stiles and somehow she’s still even more in love with him than she is her job. 

They end up standing in the dark alcove between the stage and the kitchen, just able to hear faint strains of music from the large string band that Lydia had hired. She’s surprised when she’s the first one that reaches for him; usually, when they have nights like these, Stiles is the one who falls apart with more urgency. After all, he’s the one who had been placed on hold by an overly-ambitious twenty-four-year-old woman who had assumed she was doing the right thing. 

His hands find the right spots on her body like they’ve never forgotten the practise they’d had. As Lydia buries her face in his shirt, she feels herself melting into him the same way she melts into the song— letting him control the movements of her body, letting him control the pace, letting him control the sway. 

It’s the right thing to do after everything she’s put him through. 

“You don’t have to keep waiting for me, you know,” whispers Lydia, her voice muffled by his chest. She can hear his heartbeat. She loves his heartbeat. 

“I’m not,” Stiles lies. “I’m dating people. You see them all the time.” 

“But you haven’t been in love in four years.” 

“Neither have you.” 

“By choice, Stiles.”

“Yeah. By choice.” 

“No, I mean.” She moves back and places her hands flat on his chest, looking up at him in frustration. “I mean it was my choice to breakup, and it’s my choice not to date anyone. It doesn’t have to be your choice just because it’s mine.” 

“You said someday.” 

His voice is so strained. That’s how she knows how stubborn he’s being. Because she isn’t sure how far either of them had thought someday would be, but she knows they hadn’t expected it to be like this.

“I said someday, but I didn’t say you had to agree to it.” 

“I did. I _do_.” 

Every time Lydia had gotten promoted, she had avoided the hopeful light that Stiles held in his eyes for weeks, not wanting to watch the fire die out little by little every day she didn’t knock on his door and collect what is hers. It was times like those, when she tried to figure out whether or not she was ready for them, that she questioned why she was doing this. Was she taking this too far? Was she being overly cautious? Was she hurting him beyond repair? 

The irony is that being overly cautious has gotten in the way of her accurately perceiving her own cautiousness. 

“I’ve told you about my high school boyfriend, right? Jackson?”

Stiles sighs heavily, a little thrown-off by the diversion. She doesn’t know how to tell him that she wants to try to give him one of the million explanations that she owes him. 

“Yeah. A few times.” 

“I had this image in my head of _perfect_ … I… I wanted to be his trophy girlfriend, in the end. And somehow being that girl was more challenging than just being myself, it took more energy, more intelligence, more social acumen. I think…” She trails off to steady her voice, lowering it in pitch so that the words are just for them, even in the dingy, echoey hallway. “I think I really believed that I could be anything if I could just be Jackson Whittemore’s girlfriend for a little while.” 

He’s soft when he speaks. He understands what she’s given to him, Lydia thinks, and it makes her want to give him more. 

“You told me you pretended to be stupid.” 

“I did,” Lydia says. “And when he broke my heart and I realized what I’d done, I promised myself I’d never put another person in front of my goals ever again.” She pauses, taking a moment to compose her thoughts. “Sometimes I… I look back on what might have happened if I broke his heart before he broke mine. And I wonder if I would have played that same character my whole life if the world hadn’t snapped me out of it.” 

“ _You_ snapped you out of it.”

“No.” She smiles sadly. “That’s the thing, Stiles, I can’t… I’m not good at that. At doing what’s good for me.” He looks down at her, finally at a loss when he feels her next words coming even before she says them. “And _you_ are what’s good for me.” 

He kisses her without asking, and it’s okay. She wants him to. 

Lydia kisses Stiles back, pushing him with her hands, getting him to stumble backwards until his sharp shoulder blades hit the wall. The awe in his eyes is worth just about everything when she reaches for his belt, undoing it with what she considers to be a remarkable amount of dexterity considering the fact that the alcove is pitch black. The only way they’d be caught is if someone jumped onto the stage, ran off, and found this door, or if someone got lost trying to get somewhere else. And yet there’s still something reckless about it when Lydia sinks to her knees in front of Stiles, momentarily not caring about her black dress getting dirty from the floor. 

It’s a five thousand dollar Alexander McQueen and she’d rather blow Stiles on the dirty floor of a hallway than keep the dress in perfect condition. 

He hardens quickly under her touch. Her warm hand cups him, and for a few breaths, it’s not about sex at all. She cradles him like he’s something precious, licking her palm before sliding up and down his shaft, her heart caught in her throat. It _feels_ like intimacy, watching him grow under her ministrations, knowing what color his cheeks are right now even though it’s too dark to see. 

Then he lets out a whimper and Lydia remembers that she owes him for letting her be his weakness. 

She moves her mouth over him without much ceremony and sucks tenderly at his tip. For a moment, she lingers there, not wanting to engulf all of him, wanting to drag it out. She hasn’t sucked anyone’s dick in a while, much less Stiles’ dick. For the record, it also happens to be her favorite dick in the world, but Lydia assumes the correlation isn’t a coincidence. 

It’s natural to open herself up to him. It’s _always_ been natural with Stiles, with the way he’d fit into her life, with the way he’d fit her into _his_ life in a manner that had, at the time, felt effortless. He had opened himself up to her years ago, and now she takes him deeper, closer to the back of her throat, suddenly feeling like breathing isn’t as important as telling him how much she loves him. 

He’s shaking. She isn’t sure whether it’s from pleasure or emotion because she’s seen him do both, but she has the strong urge to soothe him anyways. Closing her eyes and sliding her lips a bit further this time, she punctuates it by taking her hand off of him and stroking his skin. The fingers that had just been on his cock trail from the highest point that she’s capable of reaching on his back to the smooth, bare skin on his ass. She draws her hand across his skin until her hand has moved over the curve of his cheek and back upwards, landing on the sharp line of his hip bone. It juts out against her thumb as Lydia pulls off of him, admiring the spit string she leaves before she licks a clean stripe up the underside of Stiles’ cock.

“Ly… Lydia wait, okay? Wait, hang on.” He sounds reluctant to pause her, so Lydia replaces her mouth with her hand, staring up at him with something akin to deference rippling through her. It’s only when Stiles covers her hand with his that she realizes he genuinely wants her to stop. “Are you… do you think you’ll let me come in you tonight? ‘Cause if you will, I don’t wanna come in your mouth. I want it to be inside of you.” 

“Oh.” She lets it out in one exhale, almost harrowed by the affectionate gaze he always turns upon her in moments like these. “Yes,” Lydia whispers. “Let’s go upstairs.” 

They make out in the elevator, Stiles’ hand splaying all the way across her back as he fists his fingers into her hair and kisses her fervently enough to replace all the somedays that could have been but had passed them by. By the time they’re on her floor, Lydia has weak knees and a weaker resolve. She wants to throw all her cards on the table, face up, and just let him take control of the game. Instead, she is silent as they move down the dark hallway on her floor, Stiles’ hand squeezing Lydia’s so tightly that she wants to cry. 

She thinks about the way he’d held her hand the first time they’d had sex, five years ago, and how he’d seemed so much smaller back then— at least to her. He’d only been with a few girls, they were _young_ , and although he’s been with many since, he still has those sloppy, adoring tendencies that reveals how uncalculated he is when he’s with her. 

Lydia had forced herself to do a complex equation in her head to figure out whether or not she should be with him. Stiles, for all appearances, hadn’t even had to count on his fingers to figure out what he wanted.

It’s no secret that Lydia has always envied his ability to fling himself off of a cliff and not care if he lands on pillows or on jagged rocks. He’s reckless with his heart and she’s reckless with his heart too. But somehow, inexplicably, Stiles just _knows_ that that’s how she’s had to love him all this time. 

He’s never questioned it, this sweet man. 

They burst into her office in a mess of limbs and kisses and rustling fabrics. Lydia thinks she might have stepped on Stiles’ toe in their dual effort to get her up onto her desk, but he doesn’t say anything about it. Her legs spread almost of their own volition so that he can settle there, and Lydia’s fingers tremble as she works on the buttons on his shirt, wanting it off, wanting everything to just fall to the floor between them. 

She kisses his chest once he’s finally revealed to her— his clavicle, his sternum, his pecs. Her fingers scrape against his nipples when he hitches his hands around her legs and pulls her closer, angling her core against his cock where it’s still hard underneath his pants. 

“What do you want?” Stiles breathes as Lydia rocks up into him, groaning against the slide of his dick against her thong. 

“No,” she says firmly. “Th-this is about you. What do you want?”

“I want what I always want,” says Stiles, coyness gone now that both of them know exactly where they stand. “I want my head between your legs.”

She almost sobs when he says it, and makes a split-second decision to pretend that it’s because his dick had just rubbed against her clit, not because the idea of Stiles’ tongue in her cunt is too good to stand. 

“Yes yes yes,” she chants, kicking off her shoes immediately. 

“Just gimme a sec, okay?”

She watches him walk over to her service cart. The straps of her dress are halfway off her shoulders, the crotch of her panties soaked, the spit on her lips shining by light of the skyline in front of her, visible via a wall that is actually one big window. Stiles’ bare back is still the best view in sight despite the lights and stars which outline his figure in the dim room.

“Get in the armchair,” he instructs over his shoulder, pouring scotch into a glass. Lydia stands up on shaky legs and walks over to the armchair, feeling anticipation throb in her clit as she watches the muscles in Stiles’ back shift when he moves. He spritzes lemon into the drink with a flourish and crosses the room to offer it to her with eyes that are so full of trust, it makes her want to cry. Lydia takes the glass from him, maintaining eye contact as she sips because he is just sinking onto his knees in front of her like he’s at some sort of alter, seeming for the moment to care more about how she likes her drink than he cares about getting off. 

It makes her heart ache for him, and in that moment she loves him with the most certainty she’s ever had. She willingly spreads her legs when his hands move under her dress, pushing all the way up until he reaches her panties. He slides them down her legs with solemnity that is almost worshipful and casts them aside. She knows he sees the shiver that goes down her spine; can feel the goosebumps on her skin. 

He can keep them. They’re his. 

Lydia’s dress gets bunched up around her knees, the inside of her knees kissed, and then Stiles’ head is under her skirt as his mouth devours her without any more preamble. He’s _fast_ — there are probably patterns that his tongue are creating, but he’s so swift, so desperate, that Lydia can’t find the wherewithal to note them. She sinks deeper into the chair, writhing against his face, unable to help herself when she has the knowledge of _exactly_ where she wants his nose. 

“Yeah,” Stiles says hoarsely, moving back for just a moment, pushing her skirt away so he can look at her. “Ride my face, Lydia.” 

He’s gone a moment after that, and Lydia complies without complaint, pressing her hand over her mouth to muffle the moans that are crawling up her chest from her belly-button. 

Or maybe from her inner thighs, where his hands part them with ease. 

Or maybe from her knees, where they’re hitched over his shoulders. 

Or maybe from her heels and her pointed toes, down where they rest against his bare back. She keeps switching off from accidentally kicking him (when he does something so good she can’t help it), to running her toes soothingly over his skin (an apology for hurting him, for losing control, for never having it in the first place.) 

Lydia knows exactly why he’d made her a drink— it had given him a moment to cool off, to think about something other than her body, and had given _her_ an opportunity to take a breather and reject him before they got here. But at the moment, she can barely remember what day it is, much less the fact that she’s holding an expensive glass that had been gifted to her by her boss’s boss for her birthday this past year. 

The drink clatters to the floor when she comes, scotch spilling across dark wood panels. 

Usually Stiles would lick her through her orgasm, but this time he blinks dazedly as he ducks out from under her skirt again, eyes finding the glass on the floor.

“Sorry,” he says, looking up at her guiltily. 

“Don’t apologize to me,” is Lydia’s response, taking him by the chin and connecting their lips. She uses their kiss to lift him off of the floor, off of his knees, until the both of them are standing again and he’s towering over her. “You never have to apologize to me. And that was...” She can’t finish the sentence, so she stands on her tiptoes and kisses him instead. 

Stiles’ hand drifts down her curls, flattening them as he strokes her hair. She would have been pissed about it an hour ago, when she was immaculate, but now Stiles is half naked and they’re both sweating and her thong is hanging precariously atop an award she’d won while she was still in her PhD program. 

He frames her cheeks with his hands, eyes drifting back and forth across her face. He bypasses her stillness, bypasses her makeup, bypasses her defenses, somehow seeing through all of it and seeing a future instead. 

“Your underwear’s on your Beaumont award,” murmurs Stiles. 

“You have a good eye for interior design.” 

“Either that or excellent aim.” 

“Possibly both, don’t limit yourself.” 

His eyes flicker back over to the award, narrowing at it like he can’t believe it’s there. 

“You’re the smartest girl I ever met,” he says, and that’s when Lydia realizes that it’s not that Stiles can’t believe the trophy is there— it’s that he can’t believe _he’s_ there with her.

Lydia laughs, standing on her toes again so that she can nuzzle her nose along his jawline. 

“Are you ready yet, Mr. Stilinski?” 

She winds her arms around his neck, dropping kisses there, paying special attention to the moles that she likes to stare at during longer company meetings. He concedes moments later, his hands dropping to the zipper at the back of her dress and sliding it slowly down while Lydia continues to kiss his neck. She steps back once his hand is resting gently on top of her ass, docile as he always is with her. 

Lydia lets the dress slide off of her body, falling to the floor, and steps out from the pile of fabric, totally bare in front of him. His eyes unabashedly fixate on her breasts; on the way they sway as she moves towards him again, their chests pressing together when Lydia kisses his cheek tenderly.

“‘M always ready for you.” The way he mumbles it is almost boyish, like he’s embarrassed of how much he wants her. Lydia considers the voracity with which he goes down on her, the hunger with which he kisses her, and thinks she’s never felt anything better.

She backs up to the wall that’s perpendicular to her giant window and stands against it, tilting her head at him. 

“Make me feel it tomorrow.”

He’s on her seconds later, and she’s kicking his pants to the ground despite the fact that she hadn’t quite gotten the belt all the way off when he had lifted her up and pushed her against the wall. It’s fast, and it’s heady. His cock finds her center almost immediately, shoving inside of her as Lydia gasps with relief. She wraps her legs around his hips, her heels are digging into his ass as he drives into her, which only seems to make his thrusts harder. Lydia bangs her head back against the wall, moaning, because this, this is _so good_ , this is what she likes, what she’s been missing— not sex, but a night of Stiles. 

The position they’re in is familiar, and he knows how to use his length to torture her in the fullest way possible. She wants to remind him of how they’d laughed so hard the first time they’d had sex against a wall, how they hadn’t known how to account for their height difference yet and it had been a tremendous disaster. But instead, she latches onto the intimacy of that memory, using it, letting it make her clit swell and ache even though she can’t reach it in this position. 

It’s so _much_ , what they’ve been through, and sometimes Lydia thinks that no matter how hard she chokes on his length or how far he is buried inside of her, he will never quite be deep enough. It’s a terrifying, desperate feeling to always want more of him. She wants him _everywhere_ — him on her couch on Saturdays, him in her bed in the morning, him in her cunt at night. 

Nobody’s ever touched her like this.

No. But that’s not it, is it? That’s not why she loves him so much it’s ruined her for anyone else. 

Nobody’s ever made her love herself like he does. Nobody has ever loved her so much that she saw the pangs of it in his eyes; felt the grit of it in her fingers and toes. She’s never loved anybody so much that the way he sees her had invaded her brain like a virus, because she has always been so, so proud to be the one he chooses. 

Lydia’s nails dig into Stiles’ shoulders. If he loves her, there must be a reason. If someone like him— someone so full of love and humor and vulnerability— has loved her for so long, maybe she’s worth that love after all. 

“I love you so much,” she gasps involuntarily. “Stiles, I love you _so much_.” 

He comes a moment later, body slamming her against the wall one final time as his muscles go taut. Lydia lets him stay inside of her until his heart slows down. She lets him bury his face in her breasts, panting against her skin as he slides back down to reality. 

“I,” he starts, then stops, like he isn’t sure it’s what he’d wanted to say. But he shakes his head. Presses his lips against the swell of her breast. “I don’t wanna do this anymore.” 

They untangle in that moment, Stiles lowering her feet gently to the floor. She expects them to seperate, just because of the way his words had doused her heart in the ice that had only _just_ melted. She expects to be cold again, to go back to missing him. 

Instead, he leans his head against her forehead, his palm against the wall above them as he leans into her. Stiles’ eyes are closed, blocking her out for the moment. 

“Don’t want to do what?” she asks gently. 

His eyes open to her. She loves his eyes. They’re her favorite color now. 

“It’s now, Lydia,” he says, and it’s so earnest that she wants to cry. “It’s now. I swear to god, it’s now.” 

When she starts to cry, she doesn’t know what the tears represent, and that makes her want to scream. 

Lydia is in control. She’s a planner. She had planned the whole event down there, she had planned out her life, she had planned out the future of the company, even though it isn’t her job to do so. 

She had planned the event where Stiles had brought another girl. She had planned out her life, and he wasn’t in it. She had planned out the future of a company that doesn’t belong to her yet. 

But he does. And she belongs to him. 

“Okay,” she agrees, brushing her fingers down his temple. “It’s now.”

It’s a physical, instantaneous reaction, the way he loses his breath. 

“Really?”

“According to my calculations,” she whispers, tears dropping into her mouth. He kisses new ones off of her cheeks before they can reach her tongue. The next thing that touches her tongue is his, brushing tentatively, tremulously against her. Lydia meets it with that same hesitant slowness, as though kissing him is different on this side of someday. 

“I just like,” Stiles begins, with sincerity knitting his brows and his words together. “I just really love you.” 

“I really love you too.” He closes his eyes like it’s too much, but she keeps speaking. “I never stop loving you.” 

She leans up to kiss him again, but his body has tensed suddenly. Lydia cocks her head at him questioningly. 

“There’s… Lydia, there’s a girl downstairs that I’ve been on three dates with.” 

“Were you exclusive?”

He shakes his head. 

“No. But it still isn’t…”

He starts to look around the room for his shirt, a little frantic, and almost falls down on his way to it because he forgets that his pants are around his ankles. 

“Stiles?”

“Shit shit _shit_ ,” he complains, ignoring her as he hops towards the shirt. 

“Stiles!” Her voice is steely now. 

At her demanding tone, he stops moving. Turns towards her, crumpling the shirt anxiously in his fists, like it isn’t at least a hundred dollars, if not more. 

“Nothing good starts like this.” Stiles’ is strained as he answers her unasked question. He’s incapable of keeping the worry out of his voice. “I don’t want us to start like this.” 

To Lydia, though, it’s a sentiment that borderlines on ludicrous. 

“This isn’t the beginning,” she reminds him. 

She’s always loved the way his hope comes out in sunbursts, like it’s just been hiding behind an easily movable cloud. 

The shirt slides away with the tension in his shoulders, crumpling on the ground next to the material of her dress. Stiles grins at her with a lopsided smile that is a hybrid between sheepish and cocky. 

“Told you we were inevitable,” he says quietly. 

Kissing him is better than any fancy party, better than pink sticky notes on crisp white calendars, better than all the pieces of anything else clicking into place.

She loves work. Loves her top floor office with the huge windows and dark desk. Loves the future that she’s planned out for herself. 

But she _loves_ being inevitable with someone. 

She loves it over here, on this side of someday. 


End file.
